(Average+) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Movie in one sentence:
A foreigner is tortured by another country's culture.

Movie in more sentences:
An old man finds a tiny girl in a bamboo stick and takes her home with him. He's convinced she's a princess and when his wife expresses eagerness in wanting to raise her, the girl instantly transforms into a normal infant.

The two lovingly raise the quick-growing child, until she's deemed old enough by her foster father to move into a villa and begin her royal training; believing this is what is wanted for her from the divine beings up above, who gifted him riches after having accepted her.

But this life forced upon her brings her no pleasure, and soon she makes a regretful wish.

It's a sacrilegious opinion to have; but I don't particularly like Studio Ghibli movies. They're beautifully animated, but the stories.. I guess are quick and slow at the same time?
It always wastes time on showing stuff that would've been better spent on character relationships and explaining matters further. Why do I have to watch people patiently prepare food and eat it if those seconds could've been used on charming dialogue?
The vast majority of Ghibli movies I'd never watch again.

This one had much to tell and had interesting scenes sprinkled in, but just once did I want the girl to say "Why are we at this new house? How am I a princess?", or "Dad, I hate this, I hate what you've become!", or "You're the reason I'm unhappy, dad!", or just a simple and to the point "I want to go home!".
But she only sits there, occasionally depressed, and not even her foster mother explains anything to her or asks her husband to give up. The man deserved a scolding.
At the end of the movie he apologizes to Kaguya, but is it an apology for his annoying control freak behaviour or for failing to keep her on Earth, which she expressed to want? Why does it suddenly matter to him what she wants? Because it affects him this time? Really didn't like this man.

Out of nowhere, the girl remembers where she came from (after roughly 4 years of being alive or so) and we learn she is a supernatural moon resident. Cool, but I don't understand how that explains what we know about her.
She came out of a bamboo stick. How's that relevant to the moon. She was a miniature person when she was found. How is that relevant to these moon people, who show up further in time and are of normal size.
Kaguya does and says nothing throughout the movie that could've helped us guess her strange origin, it's just suddenly thrown at the audience.

"When I got glomped by a man, I suddenly remembered, I'm MOON PEOPLE!". Okey.

Why wasn't she born from the reflection of the moon in a lake, for example. Do the typical shooting star thing, for all I care, have her fall on Earth with a great blast.
Or why not show she has an affinity for going outside on nights with a (full) moon? If this was what the original fairy tale was like, I would've taken the liberty to change it. But.. I understand that's taboo in many cultures.

I liked the tragedy, though. This girl only lived out her childhood for a few months and the rest of her 3 years on Earth was unfiltered misery. Again, don't understand why she didn't blame the one person to blame for this or didn't explain for what reason she still wanted to stay on Earth, as there was nothing left for her in this life. She abandoned her childhood friend when given the one chance to reunite with him, and in those 3 years, he found himself an indifferent woman to produce a child with.
Seriously, how did he end up with her. Must've been a drunken mistake.

There are so many questions still, like; why did it take 3 years for those horny men who wanted to marry her to actually do what she asked of them? There was no reason for this time skip to make that scene work. I have a hard time believing Kaguya would still remember the details of their love proclamations to fire back at them after such a long time.
And if happiness causes Kaguya's growth to speed up, does that mean she could've been an elderly woman within a handful of years in a "better" setting?

(Average+) Great Pretender

Series in one sentence: 
A Japanese boy follows a foreign tourist all the way to America just to get his wallet back, and the series thinks that's a good way to start a story.

Series in more sentences:
A conman from Japan is tricked by a self-proclaimed Robin Hood into becoming his assistant, but soon grows tired of leading a corrupted life and tries to start anew.
Nevertheless, he can't seem to cut himself loose from him and his team of misfits, and always gets coaxed into joining their current schemes.

The idea is good and I enjoyed myself fine enough, but the execution didn't fool me. It was horrible. The show rushes through its relationships and even the storylines could've benefited from more drama and additional scenes.
I really thought the whole season was going to be about the boy pretending to be a doctor and awkwardly befriending the mob boss he was working for. That's how it should've been. Leave the other two stories for season 2 and 3.

Great Pretender had some weird dialogue and pacing sprinkled in here and there. To dump your main character in a completely different situation with different people whenever the previous conflict has come to its end is not how you make me care about him or those people. Why are they using this old Disney/Warner Brothers cartoon formula of time skipping and putting the characters in a different location with a different job?

I don't understand what the connection between the main cast is, as well. The main character treats his fellow scammers as friends he should put genuine emotion and care in, but why? Except for the Frenchman, of course, who earned his disdain for no reason. Why him, but not the redhead who deceived him equally, or the abusive tan girl?
All in all, he hardly knows these people and his experiences with them aren't stellar. Why are they even scammers, why do they work together? The series shows parts of their past, but it doesn't explain anything.

As the show began, I thought the boy and the Frenchman were going to be this awesome scamming duo, but the Frenchman has relatively little screen time, let alone with the boy, while he's supposed to be the leader here and the boy his "assistant".
He's a strange character, anyway. Everyone around him keeps calling him a perverted womanizer, but you never see him do anything or even throw around comments that couldn't be perceived as sarcastic jokes.

The mistakes Great Pretender makes are unnecessary. In a way, the entirety of the show feels like a pilot.

(Average) The Devil Is a Part-Timer!

Series in one sentence:
Evil, heartless, murderous demons instantly turn into funny, hospitable people.

Series in more sentences:
During an intense battle, Satan and his right-hand man are teleported to Earth and forced to live like normal human beings. But their arch-enemy is there too, keeping a close eye on them.

This could've been so good, but it lost its charm quickly. I don't like it when demons or monsters get introduced as threatening villains, but then turn meek when they're put in a different setting. Satan was disappointingly docile for a power-hungry lord.

This would've been a more interesting show if he responded to set-backs and normal social interactions with anger and violence, whereafter we'd slowly see him develop a sense of humanity, thanks to the people around him and the petty jobs he's forced to do in order to sustain his weak human body.
But he and every other demon that shows up are just.. normal guys. Far from a threat. I don't understand why Satan allowed for this one traitor to live with him, either, and the hinted at romance between him and the hero could've been left out. It was hardly a subject and went absolutely nowhere.

Most of the episodes were bland, I got very little entertainment out of this, wouldn't recommend.

(Average) BONJOUR ♪ Sweet Love Pâtisserie

Series in one sentence:
A harem show starring characters who aren't in love with each other at all.

Series in more sentences:
A talented, shy student enrolls in a pastry school, where she soon finds herself surrounded by the attractive and highly pursued teachers. They become great friends and hang out often, while the strict headmaster keeps an eye on their interactions.

A basic bitch in anime form. Not funny, there're no risks, no originality, typical drama, the cooking theme is an afterthought, there's hardly any romance to take seriously, and the one romance that is slightly appealing is a half-baked dead end.

Though the series rushes its relationships as if the director had a bus to catch that day, the redhead had potential. He was so determined on asking the main character to be his girlfriend, you're surprised to find him shoved aside in the end. Worse yet, he gives his love interest a lacklustre goodbye after graduation.
The anime didn't even care to explain why this particular boy was so drawn to her to begin with, which matters, since he remarked she looked like someone he knew. But this matter is shamelessly made undone a few episodes later with an "oh, I don't remember saying that". Alright, well, thanks.

..And then for that shitty contest plot at the end. Out of nowhere, the characters use super powers and "cook" a giant floating Earth globe. A literal Earth globe. What is this globe, exactly? A cake? A jawbreaker? Chocolate? Ice cream? Not explained. The characters are deemed the winners and then the story ends. What the fork did I watch.

Skip it, kids.

(Average+) My Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Series in one sentence:
A girl fakes interest in people so she won't die.

Series in more sentences:
A high school girl dies and reawakens in the young body of a video game villain from a dating simulator she's played in real life. When she remembers the future of this character can only be death or exile, she tries her best to show kindness to the characters around her and hopefully change her grim fate that way.

She ends up charming everyone she speaks to, who fawn over the oblivious girl years later.

The first three episodes are rushed in the relationship building department and that made me worry for the rest. If a studio only has a contract for a few episodes and a village of people to introduce, understandable, but I still think the series fell short as a whole.

The majority of the love interests hardly got the screen time necessary to turn them into a person we -or the main character- should consider. They tend to have their "own episode", but in every other episode you usually see them standing around and uttering maybe three lines of dialogue in total.
Every time we focus on the development of a character, all other (still underdeveloped) characters are shoved aside even more.. and this featured character will still be bare bones, because they'll hardly be on screen in the episodes that follow afterwards. 
 
The main character isn't much better. Her blindness for the facts, including that the people she befriended are obviously not going to kill her anymore, started to annoy me a little the longer it went on. There's no reason for a character to be this dumb, shit me.

Would've loved to give this show a good rating, it has potential and managed to entertain me for the most part, but the storylines it focused on weren't always that great. The one with the magic book was absolutely pointless.
To give every love interest their own full episode is good, but it should've had the earlier introduced love interests butting in all the time; don't make them forgotten characters.
As the show is now, it doesn't feel like the main character has met up with them all that often, the show just asks us to believe they did.

The whole magic aspect in this was pointless as well. There are enough instances where it makes an appearance, I guess, but all plots that revolve around it could've been replaced with normal trickery or a human problem and have the same results.

Anyway, despite my criticism, I think most people will find this a nice watch.

(Good) BNA

Series in one sentence:
Furries are given their own city to rule that's arguably more violent than the human establishments they've fled from.

Series in more sentences:
A normal high schooler suddenly turns into a persecuted "beastman" and decides to take refuge in Japan's well-known beastman city. There she happens to meet a wolf private detective with a disdain for humans, and by tagging along, comes to discover more about him, the residents, and reason why she looks the way she does.

Cool character designs, cool moments, interesting concepts, just great, but a major complaint is how short it is. The characters and story interest me, but are minimally covered. I would've liked more scenes with these people together. What people? All of them.
The girl and the wolf are more or less a crime fighting duo, but at the same time, really aren't. They interact relatively little. Still, BNA manages to make their relationship feel genuine and that's an art.. I just don't know what to call their relationship. This is the case with pretty much every character in the show.

Some are really awkward or undeveloped. The girl's best friend is an example. She acts like a total stuck-up bitch all throughout the series, and I'm still not sure what made her change her ways. I didn't think her excuses for doing the things she did made any sense. You were vain and hostile because you had to keep certain things a secret? What?
And then there's this friend's "manager". I have no fucking clue what his deal was. Who was he? Why did he do the things he did? I thought he was going to be the main villain or something, but in the end, he was just some random pedofile with no important or relatable goals.

And then for the beastmen as a species that take refuge in this city claimed to be the most welcoming living space for them - a city where they excitedly fight and kill each other as to gain rank and respect.
So then, why are the humans the villains in the story? Why is it alright for beastmen to brutally murder other beastmen during a game of baseball, but are humans that kill or bully a beastman evil? To be scared and prejudiced is shit, but these are actual reasons to lash out. A game of baseball, something that's supposed to be fun and have rules, isn't.

The last fight scene was cheap as well. Here we have this godlike creature, super cool, and then out of nowhere, the previously defeated half-god defeats him without issue. And then the show ends, where the main character decides to stay a beastman a bit longer, as if the audience didn't already guess that would happen by her reluctance to turn back into a human pretty much right after she figured out how to.
I bet her school and parents are glad she's still out there for no reason.

But that's pretty much all I have to say. This is worth a watch and an expansion; though preferably to season 1. I don't know if I'd care for a second season with a whole new main conflict introduced.

(Average+) A Whisker Away

Movie in one sentence:
The Cat Returns returns.

Movie in more sentences: 
High schooler Muge isn't optimistic about her life after her parents' separation, making her the ideal victim for a shady mask salesman to offer her a new life. Of a cat.
When transformed into her new body, she is found by a classmate who opens up to her, causing her to instantly fall in love and see her chance to happiness with him.

But the boy can't stand her human self, making her dependable on her cat mask, but a choice has to be made and nothing is for free.

Fun idea, it's a high "average+", but it still felt lacking. The relationships needed more screen time and the end battle was laughably clunky. They should've made the salesman a neutral party; leave magic cat world and that whole ordeal out of the story.

But well, I was entertained enough to keep on watching and understood, and respected, the dramatic points it tried to discuss. Maybe better as a series, though.
I don't know, in any case, worth a watch.

(Average+) Miss Monochrome -The Animation-

Series in one sentence:
It's a joke, it's a joke, it's a joke, it's a joke, it's a joke, it's a joke, it's a joke.

Series in more sentences: 
A machine projected, AA battery-powered robot girl with unexplained wealth gets the unsatiated desire to become a pop idol one day, but after getting robbed by her servant, has to involve random people to help her achieve her goal of surpassing the current number one idol; a seemingly immortal girl she swears to have met before in the far past.

There's a healthy sense of humor in this, if only because so little is explained and the character finds instant success in anything but her dream career for the majority of the series, but nothing made me smirk. The show has this slow, almost bored vibe to it. The pieces are there, but it didn't manage to excite me.

The songs are less original and inspiring than what I've heard people on Youtube create with Vocaloid software. I don't feel enriched after watching Miss Monochrome, but I can see there's a fun story hidden in there, so, well, there's no harm in checking it out for yourself.

And I lied, one joke made me laugh; the poster for the introvert, genderbent Monochrome. That episode was good enough to get its own series. I'd say it would've been better.

(Average) Fushigi Yugi: Eioden

Series in one sentence:
Teenage girl gets teenage married and teenage pregnant, while another teenager with teenage problems also thinks her teenage crush on her teenage husband is worth getting a series.

Series in more sentences:
The follow-up to Fushigi Yugi (and the OVA).

Miaka and Tamahome get married and await their child, but a troubled girl with a crush on him can't contain her jealousy and uses the ancient book to start up another disaster scenario in need of a priestess saviour, forcing Tamahome back inside as well and be her partner.

But an evil version of the god Suzaku is spawned, that feeds off the girl's paranoia and vengeful feelings. He tries to kill the still clueless reincarnations of the original Suzaku Seven heroes before they can save everyone once again.

Who the Hell is this girl, then?

Why to any of this. There are only 4 episodes and the audience is immediately asked to accept a teen pregnancy, the random misunderstood villain and her relationship with the original cast, the boring Tamahome as again someone's love interest, the weird and hastily inserted backstory of the emperor's one-month wife, the repeated erasure of the consequences that death brings when the heroes instantly become their normal and adult selves, and the reasons given for why anything is happening at all.

It could've been an interesting watch, but it isn't, and even if it was, it'd be a pointless addition to what should've finally been Miaka and Tamahome's happy ending.

(Average) Fushigi Yugi OVA

Series in one sentence:
I mean it, don't read, books will hold you hostage forever.

Series in more sentences:
The follow-up to Fushigi Yugi.

After Miaka and Tamahome earned their happily ever after, he's suddenly summoned back inside the book and has to discard his memories in order to keep on living in the real world.
But when a power-hungry demon plans to destroy the physical containers holding his memories -which would lead to his erasure- he and Miaka need to come back again to fight this villain and protect both their worlds.

An unnecessary and repetitive extension of a series that was already repetitive.

The first two episodes brought an interesting twist concerning Tamahome's reincarnation, but it's immediately spoiled to us it was just an illusion created by a dead enemy, resurrected by this demon character who came out of nowhere. I'm genuinely disappointed. The idea that Tamahome was in actuality the reincarnation of the original series' villain would've been so damn cool.

But instead, we have to watch our bland lovers forcibly utter their goodbyes for the one millionth time and the series AGAIN presents the solution of Tamahome getting reincarnated into Miaka's world.

..Didn't we just do this? Does the absence of his memories protect him from getting erased or sent back? Obviously not, as he and Miaka get sucked into the book again, where he's immediately given part of his memories back and this becomes the new objective. The series ends with (spoilers, lol) him existing in the real world with his memories intact, making me ask the question what the point of this journey was.
I found the "you're a spirit body now, so therefore.."-excuse cheap. How does reincarnation not do the same thing? It wasn't Tamahome's actual flesh-and-blood body that got transported to Miaka's world, was it? Rather, his soul? 
So what's the difference? What does reincarnation entail in Fushigi Yugi?

The subplot where their dead friends were also given the chance to get reborn was a huge cop-out as well. How does death mean anything if people are able to get resurrected and stay chatty ghosts in the meantime.

There were a few interesting bits, but I don't think I'd recommend this to someone who watched the original. It offered too little for that.

(Good) Fushigi Yugi

Series in one sentence:
Don't read, is bad for you.

Series in more sentences:
Two high school friends become part of an ancient Chinese world when they happen to find an enchanted book. After a short separation and a back and forth between worlds, they both get sucked in and become enemies over a misunderstanding.

Their foreign status earned them the destined job of priestess, and they race each other to summon their God first, as to secure the safety of their respective kingdom and have their desires fulfilled.

It would've been an (mostly) excellent story if the characters were given infinite more time with each other.. and there were less pointless 80s-styled music videos.

The drama in Fushigi Yugi feels exaggerated because of this. Little to no time was spent on showing the relationship between these people grow, and I'm not sure if I care about a desperate, teary-eyed romance between two characters that have only known each other for maybe 3 days. Whereafter they've had no contact for 3 months. From the boy's side, that is; time works differently inside the book. Except at the end of the series for some reason, when it doesn't.

The love between the school girl, Miaka, and her guardian, Tamahome, is argued to be strong and genuine, apparently enough so to cause a long-standing childhood friendship to end. Miaka's friend, Yui, is also in love with this same boy, even though she's interacted with him a whole impressive 0 days, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds.
I don't understand where her feelings came from. In the first few episodes, Yui is immediately kicked out of the book and proceeds to read it like it's The Neverending Story, and not even then does she look at Tamahome's passages and comments something like "Wowzie, this guy is so awesome, I think I'm falling in love with him, too!". She never expressed interest in the kid and barely talked to him before she made her confession, much like Miaka. 
 
Why is everyone after Tamahome's dick in this? The only defining personality trait he has is that he wants money.

Miaka had more chemistry with the emperor and shared more dialogue with her feminine friend, but both men are shoved aside for this bland romance. Tamahome gets a hug, the emperor gets a smile after doing the same job. I've only been able to figure out that she loves him because he uttered some standard sappy shit like existing to protect her, but the emperor literally did the same..

As the series progresses, the drama becomes a bit cheap and repetitive. Miaka and Tamahome keep "breaking up" over "good" reasons they don't bother to clarify to the other, so they act like bitches a mere day after announcing their eternal love, and at one point the story is all about Miaka being in danger of getting raped by the fucking whole world, because virginity is argued to be important for a priestess to maintain. What a nauseating plot, I was happy when it was over.

Fushigi Yugi entertained me for the most part, though. It feels like the bare bones of a longer and more detailed story, but was still good for what it was. I loved the humor, even though it was misplaced at times, and also liked the characters that were given actual development.
This development was still relatively lacking, but that's something you can't avoid when you introduce so many characters in a show.

(Average+) Oda Cinnamon Nobunaga

Series in one sentence:
Humans will get a second chance at life if they're mean enough, so go become a mass murderer with multiple wives.

Series in more sentences:
A handful of Japanese warlords from old times meet up with each other in the present, reincarnated as dogs. Slaves of their new bodies, they rediscover the world and deal with their lives as the loved pets of women. 

This could've been a whole lot better. 

I don't see the point of humans reincarnating into dogs if they only talk about their past lives in their minds, while having very little control over their dog body and brain.
The characters are shown to be instinct-driven animals, but at the same time, are less aggressive than their human selves were. Why are these warlords, who (used to) have a deep hatred for each other, calmly sitting around in the dog park and chatting it up with each other? They should be digging their teeth in each other's throat like rabid wolves. The warlord aspect really falls flat.

An episode exists out of a series of short stories, in chronological order, and too many of these are too short to bring any kind of joke or point across. It would've been better if these were full, proper episodes.
Reoccurring storylines take too long to progress, and the payout is.. none. There's no conclusion to any of it, because I think they want to animate a second season.

Out of everything this series showed me, the last few minutes of the last episode were the most interesting.

(Average) As Miss Beelzebub Likes

NOTE: I stopped at episode 7.
 
Series in one sentence:
Beelzebub is kaka.

Series in more sentences:
A young demon is assigned to be Lord Beezlebub's assistant, but learns she's not the stoic ruler he thought she was. While having the desire to have someone cool and masculine to look up to, he can't deny there's anything wrong with being cute. The two are quick to grow fond of each other.

This is one of those shows that begs you to drop your IQ, and otherwise will do it for you. None of the episodes handed me an exciting plot or brought something new to the table in terms of story. It had the feel of a toddlers show, but with close-ups of cleavage, naked muscular men, and drooling pedofiles in bushes, so.. a typical anime, not intended for 3-year-olds.
But what teenager or adult would like this? I felt so impatient and dumb sitting through these Sesame Street storylines. The "surprises" the show hits you with I've seen a million times before, done better.
 
The overall plot is cool on paper, but that's the only compliment I can give. Everything and everyone in Hell acts normal and overly cute, and I guess that's the entire joke; you don't expect that to be the case. But what's the point. Hell looks and functions like Earth and its residents are normal, inoffensive human beings, with the occasional 0.1% freak that has animal "ears" poking out from their head.

It would've helped the series if we saw the assistant guy work his way up to becoming this girl's right hand man, and THEN we'd learn she's a lazy wuss. And only her, not every new character we come across. Liking cute and soft things is not a personality trait, so why repeat it.
Have these demons look like actual demons, the world look like actual Hell, and everything in it be awful and intimidating like Hell should be. And insert some magic and fighting scenes, because this series isn't convincing me that Beelzebub is anything but a fragile child who can't even get a book from a top shelf.

She crushed a bar of chocolate once, and that's the only portrayal of her power I've seen.

What I basically watched was the life of a young aristocrat in politics, being looked after by her assistant butler in modern, every day Japan. This whole Heaven and Hell business didn't need to exist and I'm not invested enough in these characters to keep on watching to see if anything worth while will happen further on.

(Average+) My Hero Academia

NOTE: I watched this series in English

Series in one sentence:
Morty Smith gets the ultimate superpower handed to him and still fails.

Series in more sentences:
In a world where people are born with superpowers, and heroes and villains are a real thing, one aspiring hero learns at an early age he won't be able to follow his dreams and is "quirkless"; a normal human being with no gift.

One day, he comes across his idol and the most respected superhero in the world, who sees potential in him. Their meeting opens up Izuku's chance to go to hero school and train to become the best who ever was.

What an awesome story that'll likely jump the shark soon. I was disappointed by the direction it took concerning the main character as well.

Batman taught us that you can be a strong and feared hero without having actual powers, and I thought the show was going to take that route for Izuku. After all, people who didn't put trust in him did so because he was quirkless, so why prove them right by giving Izuku a powerful quirk? The only reason he made friends at school at all is because he showed off his powers. His kindness and selfless heroism were secondary.
It would've been a way more touching story if he rose to the top as a normal person, by physically training himself and being clever. There's this semi-background character in the anime who keeps herself busy with making robotic accessories; I think this role would've suited him.

I do think the story made right by making him struggle to use his power, but I found the speed in which he learned to control it to be fast and sudden. One day he cripples himself and the school nurse warns she won't heal him if it happens again, the next, he basically already has it under control before he's even taught the technique on how to do so.
How was he able to practise by himself, jumping on walls, if he couldn't show the same restraint when it actually mattered? And how can 5% of his power destroy a building and blow people away early in the show, but later it won't even knock out a single person?

As for the villain of the series, or rather his successor, what an absolute whine baby. He looks intimidating and weird, but he talks like an entitled 13-year-old and is a failure. I can't understand for the life of me why the big boss wants him to take his place. Because of the twist that's revealed later on; to spite the people who care about this? A foolish reason.

Season 4 in general tired me out and was a mess. It had an excellent cliffhanger, but it wasn't at all a follow-up to the majority of occurrences that happened. It brought the series back to the point, but came out of nowhere. The forgotten main story was probably dug up as to convince the audience to come back for season 5.  
Most of the episodes I didn't care for. Preparing for a school festival isn't a logical conclusion to the horror that happened prior, the short villain plot that came with it wasn't interesting until the very last moment, and the literal last-minute focus change to the new nr. 1 hero in Japan, Endeavour, was nice to have after this bore fest, but you see.. I don't care to see that guy get glamorized.

He's a domestic abuser. A character that doesn't deserve sympathy, let alone from his wife he used as a birthing machine and then drove to absolute insanity with his abuse. She's stuck in a madhouse because of him, and has been for years. Is there no realistic law enforcement in this world? Endeavour is a criminal that should've gone to trial for the way he treated his family, but here he is, out working as a proud crime fighter. Because he leaves behind some fucking flowers for his mentally destroyed wife so now and then, there's more to him? Wow, so misunderstood, look out, true love over here. Omg, I hope she takes him back, cute.
None of his neglected children should watch him fight on television with honesty and hopefulness. Disgusting. I don't like where Hero Academia is taking things with this character.

So yes, I'd say season 4 was the worst, but the director was intelligent enough to have things get picked back up with the last 2 or 3 episodes. I know I wouldn't return for the next season if it hadn't.

There's so much time-wasting going on in this show; none of the filler episodes are any fun. They're infuriatingly boring. The way Izuku grows his power is also clunky and there's little consistency. Many of the characters that had a more prominent role at the start get less of an appearance as time progresses, and that's difficult to avoid when you keep throwing characters on the screen. Even Izuku gets drowned out by these crowds.
Wasn't this supposed to be HIS story, HIS journey on becoming the nr. 1 hero?

My Hero Academia is dangling on the edge of being average, but I won't and can't forget how good the early episodes were.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

15-10-2021 UPDATE:
Watched season 5, incredibly boring, lowered my overall score for this series.

This season is a clumsy mash-up of different storylines and littered with "2 weeks earlier" and "1 month earlier" flashbacks. There are slivers of entertainment to be found, but when it's a chore to sit through a show just to get to them, what's the point.

The main problem this anime has has become very clear to me while watching this season: there are too many damn characters. You can't make them all interesting, and to shoehorn in a sad backstory for every one of them is a cheap move.
I just want to see Izuku's journey, damnit, not all this other stuff. I don't care about the opposition, they were never interesting to me. Even after witnessing a cool awakening from the loser with the chain-smoker snake voice, I still can't say to care.

Not sure if I'll be there for season 6.

(Good) Seton Academy: Join the Pack!

Series in one sentence:
Anime Waifus: Become a Zoophile!

Series in more sentences:
A human boy with a deep hatred for animals attends an animal high school, and finds himself setting up a cooking club with an incompetent wolf girl who dreams of starting a pack with many different species.

This was fun, despite the typical anime perversion sprinkled in here and there. If the creator wrote things a bit differently, this could've been a fantastic informative cartoon for children.
But I suggest you not let your kids watch this.

A world where talking, bipedal animals and humans live together is proven to work, Bojack Horseman is one of those shows, but in Seton Academy, things lean slightly more towards Beastars in the sense the species of these animals are an important factor to their behaviour and culture.
..And for some reason a wolf can grow the size of a giraffe and is one of the strongest predators in an environment full of big cats. A wolf does not have a fraction of a chance against a lion or tiger, Japan. What is up with this preferential treatment?

I liked that these character were like animals, but I'm not 100% aboard with the odd gender differences applied. All males looked realistic, while all females were just human beings with maybe a set of ears and a tail. I've seen less than a handful of female characters that looked somewhat clever, but the rest were just normal girls with nothing going on in their design. 
The sloth -with the best running gag in the show- was one of the biggest offenders.. She has a bit of moss on her hair. That's it. Incredibly uncreative.
And this matters, because the main character hates animals. To hear him shout or scoff at someone that hardly looks like one feels weird.  

"Like I care about an animal's naked body!" he snarls, concerning an "animal" that has the face, skin, and curves of an unsuspicious human girl.

This probably wanted to be a harem show, and for that to work, the girls need to look somewhat desirable. But why? There's really no harem stuff going on. The boy only likes the one other human girl that entered his sad life, and the wolf likes the boy. None of the other girls show romantic interest in him, despite the blush on their face when they first met him.
Maybe another problem is the abundance of characters being introduced. They're fun, but with this many, you can only appoint them the role of sitting in the background. I forgot the cat even existed at one point, and the wolf stopped being interesting to me further in time.

At the end we're introduced to a group of young teenagers from another school that are supposedly extinct animals, but I don't even understand how that's possible. If they're teenagers, that means they have or had parents who produced them not that long ago, but they're talking like their entire species died millions of years ago.
And why are they so dramatic, while a literal T-Rex teacher is walking around on the premise without explanation?

So far my review. Weird logic, unnecessary crotch shots and sex talk, but it kept me hooked. Would watch season 2.

(Average+) Cautious Hero: The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious

Series in one sentence:
SIKSH PAHQK.

Series in more sentences:
A young goddess is tasked to summon a competent human to save one of many Earths under attack by high ranking threats. 

Upon seeing him and his stats, she becomes instantly smitten, but soon learns his behaviour is less than appealing. The rude and overly cautious boy is quick to pick up on the rules, though, and the goddess is often reduced to being the third wheel tagging along.

Another RPG world anime, though this one tries to stand out with its assholish main character and good animation. The facial expressions the goddess makes were pretty Western at times, it was fun to see.

The start was good, near the middle it became needlessly perverse, and at the end the entire tone shifts into something that made everything that happened prior feel misplaced. I truly liked the big reveal, that was some good tragedy, but that one episode where they had to fight off a horny goddess was the stupidest shit and then there's this other scene where the main character is "training" while in a lewd position with another goddess. And it's never explained why and how that training even worked. These kind of things make the ending feel like it belonged in a completely different anime. 
I'm on the fence whether or not these rejected hentai scenes were disrespectful to the main character, as the majority of the series does have a heavy focus on comedy..

But needless nudity annoys my prudish brain, and anime has no chill, man. Drawn-out sex jokes bring down the story and waste everyone's time, and it's the reason why I'm giving this show an average+, opposed to a good rating.

I still had fun, mostly.

(Good) Somali and the Forest Spirit

Series in one sentence:
That nightmare fuel is my dad!

Series in more sentences:
In a world dominated by many odd creatures, an emotionless forest guardian meets a human orphan and travels with her around the country to find a human settlement for her to call her home.
But the human race has a bad reputation and are considered threats that should be killed, enslaved, or eaten. Their whereabouts are only guessed at and the girl has to be watched at all times - but time is something the forest golum has little of, as his role as a living guardian happens to be reaching its end. 

Good, but too short, with a climax that should've been moved to the end of a 24-episodes season. There're many unanswered questions, so a continuation is probable? Then again, I've seen many shows give up around a crucial moment. If it has a manga, then there's no real urgency, it seems. Too early to say, but I'll try to keep my eyes open for new episodes.

Don't know what else to say in this review, honestly. It was, for the most part, what you'd call a "slice of life" adventure, despite some of the action scenes and drama. The show was mainly about how the golum unknowingly developed emotions and "worried" about his deteriorating body, for this girl's sake.
Despite the ending, you know there can't be a happy ending; as the fact he's dying is mentioned every episode and love isn't keeping him intact.

At least, I hope not. That'd be a cop-out. Lee Everett this fool.

(Average+) Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Series in one sentence:
It's not Ed, Edd n Eddy, internet, stop comparing.

Series in more sentences:
Three unlikely friends come together to create anime shorts, but have to deal with the strict rules their school has set up for all clubs. Each member has their own quirk that helps them get through their demanding projects, as for each other.

2D animation interests me and I do it myself, but I can't say this show managed to hype me up for it. Not consistently so. Many scenes in Eizouken were boring to me; and ironically.. often the imagination sequences. When the characters were about to reach their goal, that's when the story kicked up the pace.

I wish I liked it more. The subject and way the characters brainstormed should've appealed to me, but I felt impatient watching.
The big animation project the series ended with was lackluster as well. I wouldn't have known what I was looking at if the characters hadn't explained the plot to me beforehand. It was badly edited, with an odd music choice, like it was made by a bunch of inexperienced high schoolers. Lewl.

Anyway. That's all I have to say. I'll likely never watch this again.

(Average+) Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun

Series in one sentence:
Unluckiest luckiest boy alive becomes luckiest unluckiest boy alive.

Series in more sentences:
An abused boy with horrible parents and the inability to say "no" gets sold to a demon and taken to the Netherworld.. to be his grandson. The eager demon immediately signs him up for demon school, while giving the young Iruma no guidance on how to behave around the aggressive creatures.

Nevertheless, dumb luck is at his side and it doesn't take long for him to build up a reputation and get devoted friends.

A simple set-up, good humor, I loved it. It seems to know it's catering to the common anime fan, and that helps sitting through some of the more cliché/cheap events and dialogue. The show just wanted to have fun with itself.

I do have to say that it drags at one point; and this one particular incident gets way more attention than was necessary. Would've liked to had seen more screen time for Iruma's classmates, as the series seemingly wanted to start doing this by the time the season had reached its end. The last episode was a strange waste of time where nothing happened at all.

There are still alot of plot points that need further discussion, I hope the show is granted a second season.

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21-9-2021 UPDATE:
You need to be a real fan to handle the disappointment season 2 brings.

It starts off with an unwanted B plot, which was really bold, since the last season promised us a cool conflict with Iruma suddenly waking up evil.
The majority of episodes were filler nonsense, and when the above storyline finally happened, it left me unsatisfied. For some reason, Iruma is not allowed to be anything but overly empathetic, and so, even his "evil self" was a good guy. Boring, I hated it. I wanted Iruma to be absolutely foul, intimidating, and yet for his new self to be the only reason he climbs the ranks and is considered for the position of demon king. Why was this not the story?

The show plays off in a demonic world based on Hell, so why is the anime evading the actual topic of evil? Evil acts are consistently being punished, but at the same time, these demons sing about eating humans, worship things that "look evil", and the show argues these very perceivably emotional beings don't actually care about each other and would let children die. You can't have it both ways. Are they reformed, civilized demons, or do they only obey those stronger than them and have evil ingrained in their biology?

Iruma-kun tries to explain these topics at times, but is more interested in being cutesy and it really tested me this time. I'm tired of seeing Iruma in optimistic bliss, this season gave the right opportunity to raise the stakes and show him act out, and they did nothing with it.

I won't lower my original score for this show just yet, but definitely will if season 3 ends up being as unfocussed.

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05-03-2023 UPDATE:
Season 3 was unbearably boring, until the school competition finally began and we had something to fucking look at. Afterwards, it was unbearably boring again.

Like always, the show believes that throwing overly cute and quirky scenes at you qualifies as entertainment, forgetting there's a story it's supposed to tell; that of the human Iruma, trying to succeed in a world that is dangerous to him. It's a shame when a series introduces a good plot, but forgets about it halfway. It's why I stopped watching My Hero Academia as well.

The overabundance of filler tested my patience. I kept skipping through scenes and eventually started watching the series in 1.5x speed, and when you do that, it's pretty much over for you.
The fan service is ironically what made me no longer a fan. Why does Iruma keep having to dress up as a girl and sing stupid pop idol songs? Why is Hell still so lame? Why does the show keep wasting their audience's time with these Sesame Street episodes? There are no stakes, because no one is truly evil, no one gets truly hurt, and no one ever dies.

I'm lowering my score.

(Bad) Pokémon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back - EVOLUTION

Movie in one sentence:
"Pokémon: The First Movie", but boring.

Movie in more sentences:
A powerful Pokémon is cloned from the remains of the mythical Pokémon, Mew, but struggles with the reason for his existence and illegitimacy as a living being. 
After learning how cruel humans can be, he decides to take matters into his own hands and sets up a plan to collect worthy trainers and Pokémon to clone for himself.

Dear me. Was this remake made to prove to da h8ters that the original was good?

Inferior script, inferior pacing, inferior character building, inferior music (if there even was music playing), and our dub's new Meowth voice actor is still unbearable to listen to. A pat on the back is deserved for -I guess- not completely copying everything from the first movie, but the additions and changes made were so pointless, why even? "Why even" to this whole movie project. 
Everything that made the original memorable got erased. The most well-known Pokémon movie soundtrack, "Tears of Life", doesn't even make a return in the form of a remix, rendition, or parody. When Ash dies, you just get Pikachu in a silent room screaming his lungs out next to the corpse of his master. Powerful, but the insertion of a short familiar melody at the end of that scene would've been better than another standard orchestra tune sucking me dry of my energy.
The drawn-out scenes with uninformative extra dialogue, the lack of background music, these made it challenging for me to keep my attention at times.

Evolution is cinematically weak and the intro scene is a good example of that. The way Mewtwo entered the world and killed his creators used to be fast, to the point, and somewhat frightening..
I also don't know if this was our dub's doing, but Giovanni didn't even clarify to Mewtwo that he was created FOR HIM. So Mewtwo, for the one millionth time, asks himself the question "Where am I, who am I?", thus seemingly doesn't know why he exists, making the reason for his retaliation vague. 
Even Mew, the cutest thing to have ever been conceived by an adult man, overdoes it in this movie. I was glad to hear its cry mimicked accurately, though. I couldn't stand the sound of Mew in that Lucario movie.

So, much like "I Choose You!", this was a waste of time for everybody involved; the people who made it and the ones who watched it.